TY - BOOK AU - Hutchins,Edwin TI - Culture and Inference: A Trobriand Case Study T2 - Cognitive Science Series SN - 9780674418639 AV - GN671.N5 U1 - 342.64/32/089912 PY - 2013///] CY - Cambridge, MA : PB - Harvard University Press, KW - Cognitie KW - Cognition and culture KW - Cultuur KW - Ethnological jurisprudence KW - Ethnologie juridique KW - Ethnologie KW - Ethnology KW - Geschichte der übrigen Welt KW - Land tenure KW - Landrechten KW - Cognition and culture -- Papua New Guinea -- Trobriand Islands KW - Cross-cultural comparison KW - Ethnology -- Papua New Guinea -- Trobriand Islands KW - Land tenure (Primitive law) -- Papua New Guinea -- Trobriand Islands KW - PSYCHOLOGY / General KW - bisacsh N1 - Frontmatter --; Preface --; Contents --; 1. Introduction --; 2. Trobriand Land Tenure --; 3. The Model --; 4. Case Analysis --; 5. Uses of the Cultural Code --; 6. Conclusion --; Notes. References. Glossary. Index --; Notes --; References --; Glossary --; Index; restricted access N2 - This book takes a major step in psychological anthropology by applying new analytic tools from cognitive science to one of the oldest and most vexing anthropological problems: the nature of "primitive" thought. For a decade or more there has been broad agreement within anthropology that culture might be usefully viewed as a system of tacit rules that constrain the meaningful interpretation of events and serve as a guide to action. However, no one has made a serious attempt to write a cultural grammar that would make such rules explicit. In Culture and Inference Edwin Hutchins makes just such an attempt for one enormously instructive case, the Trobriand Islanders' system of land tenure. Using the propositional network notation developed by Rumeihart and Norman, Hutchins describes native knowledge about land tenure as a set of twelve propositions. Inferences are derived from these propositions by a set of transfer formulas that govern the way in which static knowledge about land tenure can be applied to new disputes. After deriving this descriptive system by extensive observation of the Trobrianders' land courts and by interrogation of litigants, Hutchins provides a test of his grammar by showing how it can be used to simulate decisions in new cases. What is most interesting about these simulations, generally, is that they require all the same logical operations that arise from a careful analysis of Western thought. Looking closely at "primitive" inference in a natural situation, Hutchins finds that Trobriand reasoning is no more primitive than our own UR - https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674418660 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780674418660 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780674418660/original ER -